The story line in the new theatrical release Promised Land is obviously intended to leave audiences with a very dim and scary view of fracking and the companies that use this new method of drilling to tap vast amounts of oil and natural gas that otherwise would be inaccessible. But the depiction in Promised Land is so fantastic that the intent could backfire. Indeed, by the end of the film, moviegoers may be left annoyed and offended by the blatant attack on fracking. Indeed, this reviewer was very annoyed. (Warning: spoilers follow.)

Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." There have been investigations, reports and charges of teacher-assisted cheating in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington.

My mother always used to say “Life is the best teacher.” Sure is — and sometimes it smacks you right upside the head. It appears this has happened with Barack Obama supporters now witnessing their paychecks shrink in the wake of tax increases. And they’re none too happy. In fact, they’re shocked.

About a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society's culture to the young, but as an agent of change. And his conception of education has prevailed.

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As the members of America’s “conservative” party struggle to get a hold of themselves following this past election, they should revisit — or visit — the thought of modern conservatism’s “patron saint,” Edmund Burke.

In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the overpowered subjects of the state are indoctrinated to believe the mantra “War Is Peace, Slavery Is Freedom, Ignorance Is Strength.” In our time, it’s “Tax Hikes Are Tax Relief.”

Balkanization greatly imperils the United States. If we won’t be an American family and defend it, other families (nations) certainly won’t do so. They will in fact hold us in contempt. For just as a man may use a loose woman for carnal pleasure but not respect her, foreigners are more than willing to use our traitors within to destroy the city walls. But they may despise the traitors most of all.

If you want to know why we’re breeding some crazy youngsters nowadays, you only have to look at the adults surrounding them. A case in point is a Maryland elementary school that recently suspended a little child for using an assault finger.

On New Year's Eve, weren’t you inspired to see how our elected representatives worked late into the night to keep this country from plunging over the fiscal cliff? And what a great deal they got for us! Taxes are guaranteed to go up for the vast majority of Americans. Spending cuts will be postponed. Government is going to get bigger. So will the deficit.